2024

What an electrifying experience ACS Spring 2024 turned out to be! And to top it off, it was right here in my home city of New Orleans - no planes, no hotels, just pure conference excitement!

I had the oppurtunity to present on "New Developments in Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Carbo-Chalcogenides (TMCCs)." TMCCs represent a groundbreaking fusion of TMDs and MXenes, opening up a realm of possibilities in nanotechnology! Our session delved deep into the innovative, scalable methodologies and groundbreaking exfoliation techniques driving this revolutionary field forward.

The energy at ACS was electric, pulsating with the excitement of discovery and the promise of a limitless future in nanomaterials. 

In February, I had the pleasure of lecturing in Materials Science and Engineering on "Imperfections in Solids." It's fascinating to consider that without these imperfections, we wouldn't be able to harness the materials we use every day. This photo shows the microstructure of the C95500 Nickel Aluminum Bronze (NAB) alloy, featuring the distinctive Widmanstätten pattern. In early 2019, I captured this optical microscopic image to study the features of NAB before undergoing surface mechano-thermal treatment through friction stir processing for my M.Sc. degree completion.

In January, I was so excited to volunteer for the First Lego League of Louisiana competition. In F.L.L., teams from all around Louisiana participated in building robots, accomplishing missions, and presenting innovative projects. 

2023

I had a great experience participating in the 3 Minute Thesis competition. This competition challenges Ph.D. students to share their research to non-specialized audience in 3 minutes or less. It was a great and challenging opportunity to explain my 4 years of work in a nutshell.

During my time at Tulane, I've had the opportunity to be a guest lecturer in multiple courses, including: Thermodynamics of Materials, Professional Development for Engineers, Synthesis of Nanomaterials, and Mechanical Behavior of Materials. Teaching is my passion and I am so thankful for the chance to work on these skills alongside my research work. 

This October, I had the pleasure of giving a lecture for the Synthesis of Nanomaterials course on "Resolving Crystal Structure Using Diffraction". In this lecture, we talked about light diffraction and specifically, electron, x-ray, and neutron diffraction. We also went in further depth in analyzing X-ray diffraction patterns and determining the Bravais lattice, lattice parameters, crystallite shape/size, lattice strain. In this lecture, I tried using a new approach to view/understand Bragg's equation, Scherrer's equation, and Williamson-Hall method. The after-class survey was positive and very encouraging!

BTW, can you guess what I am saying in this moment?

Tulane's Girls in STEM at Tulane (GiST) and Boys at Tulane in STEM (BATS) programs provide fifth through seventh grade students with the opportunity to meet and work with undergraduate, graduate, faculty, and professional role models in STEM fields. The goal of the program is to open the doors wide and welcome young students to careers in STEM fields by encouraging creative thinking, promoting self-esteem, and increasing awareness of the opportunities in STEM that await them. During my Ph.D. studies at Tulane, I have been responsible for assisting and leading these workshops.

During the Spring 2023 BATs, my colleagues Karamullah Eisawi, Elham Loni, and I taught young scientists about materials, crystal structure, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, batteries, and superconducting behavior. We also had the pleasure to provide a workshop for Science teachers who will propagate and reproduce our workshop session to more students around the state of Louisiana.

It's been an exciting Summer and I am gearing up for my final year of Ph.D. studies at Tulane University. Here are a few summer highlights:

I'm excited to share our latest scientific contribution, my second paper as first author, on layered Molybdenum Boride for Li and Na ion battery, published in Small Methods. 

My sincere appreciation to my Advisor Prof. Michael Naguib for such a massive exposure and steep learning curve!

I was also honored to work again with:

Prof. Volker Presser and Mohammad Torkamanzadeh from INM-Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Germany

Dr. Chaochao Dun and Dr. Jeff Urban from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Prof. Matthew Montemore and Chukwudi Nwaokorie for theoretical calculations from Tulane University

Also, 1st published work with my lab mates Karamullah Eisawi and Audrey Buck

In early May, I had the honor to participate in the 5th US school on Total Scattering Analysis (TSA) in Oak Ridge National Lab where we learned about TSA software such as DISCUS, RMCProfile, and PDFGui.

In the poster session, I had to opportunity to talk about our recently published work on 2D TMCCs and what we have achieved so far. TSA school will help to address a lots of the unknown on our topic. We also had a fun tour around Spallation neutron source! 

It was a pleasure to present about our novel family of 2D nanosheets (TMCCs) Transition Metal Carbo-Chalcogenides at the MRS Spring Conference held in San Francisco. In my presentation, I revealed some new results about Nb2S2C, Ta2S2C, and TMCCs solid solutions.

I'm proudly sharing that my recent publication on TMCCs led by Michael Naguib was selected out of hundreds of projects in 2022 to be highlighted by the NSF.


2022

Check out this video from Kyle Matthews' podcast "It's A Material World" that nicely summarizes our recently published work about the new family of 2D materials - TMCCs.

I am excited to share the news of winning the 2nd best poster award out of 90 posters presented in the 2nd Conference by Drexel Nanomaterials Institute hosted by Drexel University.


In 2011, 1st report of MXene by Michael Naguib as a graduate student under supervision of Prof. Michel Barsoum, and Prof. Yury Gogotsi.

In 2022, 1st report of 2D TMCC by me as a graduate student, under supervision of Prof. Michael Naguib.

I'm proud and honored to announce that my first paper as a first author was published in Advanced Materials and selected as a cover titled: Transition Metal Carbo-Chalcogenide “TMCC:" A New Family of 2D Materials

After long years of hard work by a group of bright researchers led by Michael Naguib at Tulane University, we gladly report the synthesis of a novel 2D family "TMCC," which is the abbreviation for "Transition Metal Carbo-Chalcogenides". One of the reasons why this 2D family is exciting is because it is considered as a tailored merge between two well known families (MXenes and TMDCs) on the atomic level- a carbon skeleton with a chalcogen surface.

Great acknowledgment to all our collaborators for their significant contributions:

DFT: Manish Kothakonda, Jianwei Sun

Electronic properties: Fei Wang, Jiang Wei

Microscopy: Eric N. Tseng, Per Persson

XPS: Xiaodong Zhang

Optimization of synthesis parameters: Kaitlyn Prenger & Michael Naguib

It is a great honor to be a part of Naguib group where you can find the persistence, guidance, motivation, enthusiasm, patience, and knowledgeability.

I was so humbled to receive these overwhelmingly positive remarks from my students in Physics Lab and wholly affirmed in my pursuit of professorship. 

I was so excited for the opportunity to attend the 2022 MRS Spring Meeting & Exhibit in Hawaii. I presented on the: "Synthesis & Electrochemical Performance of Mo2AlB2 as Electrode Material for LIBs." 

I am thrilled and honored to share the news of developing a new 2D family material that atomically bridges the gap between 2 great and well-known families TMDs and MXenes alongside my advisor Professor Michael Naguib.

"Ahmad Majed, the first author of the article and a doctoral candidate in Materials Physics and Engineering at Tulane working in Naguib’s group, said:

We used an electrochemical-assisted exfoliation process by inserting lithium ions in-between the layers of bulk transition metals carbo-chalcogenides followed by agitation in water.

Unlike other exotic nanomaterials, Majed said, the process of making these 2D TMCC nanomaterials is simple and scalable." - Batteries News

“We used an electrochemical-assisted exfoliation process by inserting lithium ions in-between the layers of bulk transition metals carbo-chalcogenides followed by agitation in water,” said Ahmad Majed, the first author of the article and a doctoral candidate in Materials Physics and Engineering at Tulane working in Naguib’s group." - The Graphene Council

2021

I'm excited to share the publication of "Layered Nano-Mosaic of Niobium Disulfide Heterostructures by Direct Sulfidation of Niobium Carbide MXenes for Hydrogen Evolution" with Samantha Husmann, Mohammad Torkamanzadeh, Kun Liang, Chaochao Dun, Jeffrey J Urban, Michael Naguib, and Volker Presser.

This is my fifth paper as a co-author; as well as, my first paper about the MAXs (Nb2AlC, Nb4AlC3) and MXenes (Nb2C, Nb4C3) and my first paper to perform XPS analysis. 

I'm honored to announce this joyful moment! Out of 16 PhD students participating from different countries all over the world with a 5 minute "elevator pitch," I won 1st place in the Summer 2021 Tulane University Physics and Engineering Physics Colloquium. 

Special thanks to my advisor Michael Naguib and colleagues Anika, Kaitlyn, Karam, and Elliot.

This process taught me:

1) Less is more,

2) If you can explain something in a story, don't hesitate.

I was proud to participate in this work with Vipin Kumar and Michael Naguib. It's a very cool idea that aims to protect airplanes from hashtag lightning strikes using MXene polymer composite. My role here was to prepare Ti3C2 MXene by chemical etching of Ti3AlC2 MAX. It's a hazardous yet adrenaline pumping chemical step that requires handling in-situ HF acid which means I have to be wearing a corrosion resistant pair of gloves and face shield, in addition to my normal PPE nitrile gloves, lab coat and safety goggles.

MXene is a two-dimensional family of materials from transition metal carbide. It can be fairly said that 2dmaterials have been having the floor recently since the first report of graphene. The amount of publications that report new synthesis procedures, new 2D material, new properties measured, predicted stable structures that haven't been synthesized yet is unimaginable!